


if you're troy bolton, and i'm edward cullen, then who's flying the plane?

by jehoney



Series: jughead and archie [5]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Jughead Jones, Do I Ever Write Anything Else, Domestic, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, archie wants to get raunchy, jug is bad at communicating, jug is still tryna figure himself out !!, jug pov bc it's mE CMON, just some fluff, protect archie andrews, ridiculous boyfriends, spooning ;), talk of sex ?, twilight references bc i hate myself, you will pry ace jug out of my cold dead zombie hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 13:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10387863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehoney/pseuds/jehoney
Summary: Archie lets out a bark of laughter and rolls over, exposing a sliver of stomach that he widens by playing with the hem of his shirt.“Y’know… I think you’re hot,” he says, and Jug makes the fatal mistake of looking up from his screen to be met with a stupidly soft gaze. He holds it, and raises an eyebrow.“Yeah?”“Yeah.”archie wants to know if jughead thinks he's "hot". the answer is rather more complex than first anticipated.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ((guess who's back........ back again....... shady's back....... read my fic))
> 
> i feel like archie gets a lot of flack for stuff that isn't his fault so here's a fic where no-one is at fault and everyone is in love and beautiful
> 
> this was gonna be some cute smut but it turned v Serious so... maybe later i'll get around to my initial idea (i'm also adding this to my series, i don't think it fits chronologically but it's more of a collection so hey!)
> 
> enjoy :^)

“Do you think I’m hot, Juggie?”

Archie Andrews flops down into his desk chair and fixes Jughead Jones with a half puzzled, half earnest look. So really, his normal expression.

“Uh…”

It’s a complicated question. Like, really complicated.

I mean, Jughead’s got eyes, right? Meaning it’s impossible to ignore what’s in front of him, and he’s got ears too, that work, meaning he also hasn’t missed the rumour mill’s latest hot topic, which just so happens to be Archie’s hotness. He’s physically fit, that’s a safe statement to make, because the way his biceps strain at the fabric of shirts that used to fit (and that he should probably throw out) is evident, and difficult to not notice. And he’s got a good face too, which even in Jug’s head sounds like a shit compliment, but ‘good’ in the way that it’s symmetrical, well structured, and houses those deep, puppy-dog eyes.

But ‘hot’ is another matter, one with connotations and implications of lust and sex and other things that Jug, in all honesty, is not that fussed about. True, Archie has a cut-glass jaw, but the really interesting thing about his face for Jughead is the creased scar between his eyebrows, that’s been there even since they met in kindergarten, still unexplained after all these years. He’s had his hair cut, but Jug would try to find all of the colours in it even when it was in that dubious Bieber-bowl of 2011, discerning the gold from the scarlet, the tangerine from the copper.

To tell the truth, there are plenty of things that Jughead found attractive about Archie before he got ‘hot’, and now that everyone else is starting to take notice, he’s in a difficult dilemma: half because they’re noticing all the wrong things, the really fundamentally uninteresting things, like his abs and shoulders, but half because he doesn’t really want anyone else to notice the quirks that only he can see, in some kind of childish selfishness.

So his response is half-assed, and unsatisfactory.

“I mean, I guess?”

And Archie gives a fond, impressive roll of his eyes, and practically bounds over to lie beside him on the bed, on his front, propped up on his elbows. An insistent finger prods at Jughead’s leg, crossed underneath his laptop, and Jug bats it away.

“You _guess_?”

“Yes,” he shoots back, “And stop fishing for compliments, it’s not cute.”

Archie lets out a bark of laughter and rolls over, exposing a sliver of stomach that he widens by playing with the hem of his shirt.

“Y’know… _I_ think _you’re_ hot,” he says, and Jug makes the fatal mistake of looking up from his screen to be met with a stupidly soft gaze. He holds it, and raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” The glint in the redhead’s eyes has turned mischievous, and he toys with a loose thread on Jughead’s jeans, “You’ve got that sexy, broody, teenage vampire look going.”

Jughead smacks him on the shoulder.

“Fuck _off_ , Andrews.”

“Whatever you say, Edward.”

But instead of moving off the bed, Archie leans up, grinning infectiously and stealing a somewhat reluctant kiss from Jughead. It’s relatively quick and sweet, but Archie leans in again, open mouthed, and humming against Jug’s lips at the slightly more enthusiastic response. He pulls back a couple of inches, and studies the dark-haired boy’s expression.

“How about now?”

And Jughead doesn’t know what to say – not just because his brain goes fuzzy every time Archie kisses him like that, but because he’s got Riverdale’s very own Troy Bolton sprawled on the bed next to him, teasing his shirt up over his toned stomach, all eager hands and glinting eyes, and Jug doesn’t have an answer for him. If Archie wants to know if he thinks he’s attractive, the answer is simple: of course he does. But the attraction is something deeper than muscle, or looks, and has been around for years before now, and has never before factored in this sexual element that Jug isn’t sure how to approach. If Archie wants to know if Jughead wants to fuck him, the answer is far from simple, the farthest from simple it can be, and is almost definitely going to hurt his feelings.

Then again, he thinks, as his brain criss-crosses from one extreme to the other, he doesn’t _not_ want to fuck him, which is something, right? In all of the last two weeks of late-night hot mouths and hands he hasn’t been interested going much further himself, but Archie’s never one to keep his arousal hidden (even if he had the ability to), and if it would make him feel good to rub off on Jug’s leg or whatever then he’s not exactly _averse_ to it, just the cleaning up after.

And it’s not like Jughead’s anatomy is non-functioning – he gets hard, (and who wouldn’t with Archie Andrews as their boyfriend?) which almost answers the original question; if Jughead’s brain thinks Archie is attractive, and Jughead’s body thinks he’s arousing, then surely he finds him hot, but there’s some kind of disconnect between the two, and Jug’s never been able to match up his primal sexual reactions with his emotional attachments.

Besides, the most enjoyment he gets from jerking off is a kind of necessary release after an obligatory activity – over as soon as possible in order to return to everything else, so he doesn’t think he’d want Archie to touch him. Not like _that_ , anyway. This is what he’s doing right now, however, hands skating up the inside seam of the leg Jughead’s crooked under his laptop, movements bolder as the dark-haired boy stares at the screen, lost in thought.

“How about _now?_ ”

And as he repeats the question, the redhead skates his hand dangerously far up Jug’s inner thigh, who pulls away suddenly, and unintentionally forcefully, until he’s backed himself up awkwardly into the bedroom wall.

“Woah, Jug,” He holds his hands up and kneels back on his heels, “Sorry.”

“What was that?”

It comes out more cutting than he intends, and Archie turns immediately sheepish, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck as he replies.

“I was _trying_ to be sexy…” he admits, and has this look painted on his infuriatingly open face like he wants to lean in and kiss Jughead again. But he doesn’t, which is incredibly wise.

“Well don’t.”

Jughead hopes the finality of his words will put an end to it, and returns to his screen in a futile attempt to resume his writing. Archie’s still lingering, though, in the corner of his vision, like some kind of oversized kicked puppy, and although he was only being half serious Jug regrets the harshness of his words. After a minute of sitting in silence, Archie asks:

“Do you not _like_ me, or something?”

He says the word like a middle-schooler, like when asking someone out was an abstract concept rather than a literal invitation and Jug, in his tense, coiled state, throws it back at him.

“Of course I fucking _like_ you, Arch.”

“Then what?” Archie pulls Jug’s laptop away from him in an inconceivably bold move, setting it on the floor and turning back, expectantly, to where Jug can’t quite believe what’s just happened. When the only answer the redhead receives is a frightening death glare, mixed with a considerable dose of incredulousness, he mutters something else, something open and truthful, “I’m sick of fucking up just because you won’t tell me what’s going on with you.”

And now, with no laptop between them, the blow lands just below Jughead’s ribs, swift and winding. He knows he needs to open up, knows he needs to share his internal turmoil with somebody, but when he doesn’t fully understand it himself, he doesn’t know how on earth he can explain it to Archie. So instead, he lies.

“We don’t need to talk about this now.”

“ _Don’t_ we?” The response is accusatory, and now Archie is angry, eyebrows drawing together, perfect imperfect scar crumpling and this has devolved into an inescapable Argument. It takes a lot to get Archie angry, ironically, given his fiery exterior, and Jughead is practically never at the receiving end, but when he is his stomach seems to shrivel up and his face burns with humiliation and guilt, because this really isn’t Archie’s fault at all, and he should never be made to feel like it is. And there’s really no avoiding this, no way he can make his escape because he’s pressed up against the wall with no exit, and he remembers he lives here now, for crying out loud.

Jughead doesn’t like being trapped. It makes his chest tight, cord winding around his lungs and almost always leads to some sort of panic, and he knows Archie can tell, because his face softens and he moves back to give him room. After a long moment, he sighs and shifts to sit on the edge of the bed and, somehow, the turned back makes Jughead panic even more. And then, softly:

“You never tell me why you feel uncomfortable and…” he trails off, but tries again, “I always feel like the bad guy but I never know where I’m going wrong.”

Jughead shuffles forward slightly, and over his slumped shoulder can see that Archie’s picking at his cuticles, turned in on himself and sending pangs right to Jug’s emotional core. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go – Archie’s the safe solidity, always sunny, never collapsed inwards like this, like Jug always seems to be. But even Archie’s allowed to be vulnerable, and he looks so small that Jug has to reach out.

“Archie…”

He doesn’t turn around, just speaks into his lap like he’d lose faith in his words if he looked into Jug’s eyes.

“So if you want to go back to being friends or whatever—“

(Which is utterly the opposite of what he wants.)

“Archie.”

(And he’s not looking, so he’s not hearing what Jug is trying to say.)

 “I just mean that if you aren’t attracted to me – “

“ _Archie!_ ”

Jughead snaps, and Archie finally lifts his head to look at him.

“What?”

Except now he’s lost, because he’s got all of Archie’s attention and no idea what to do with it.

He could pour the entirety of the hurricane of emotions and thoughts swirling in his brain onto the bedsheets, that’s an option; or he could stare him down in stoic silence, which is equally tempting, but in the end, he does neither. He says the words that he’s been trying to avoid even thinking because, as the legend goes, to name something is to make it real.

“I think I’m asexual.”

 

* * *

 

Archie, by all accounts, takes it rather well.

Once Jughead has explained to him what ‘asexual’ means, that is.

And once he’s clarified that it’s very much an umbrella term, and he’s still nowhere near to figuring out what exactly is going on with him, but having a word for it feels good, in a way, because it means he’s not broken, and he’s not alone.

Archie listens, and nods, and apologises more than is necessary for making Jug feel uncomfortable, until the latter has to shut him up with a firm kiss.

“If I’m uncomfortable, you’ll know, Arch.” He says, earnestly, cupping his face in his hands and Archie nods.

“Yeah, sorry— _shit!_ ”

And the way he bites back his apology is so adorably frustrated, eyes scrunching and a hand coming up to tug at his hair; Jughead has to laugh, and shove him in the chest lightly so he flops back against the pillows.

The way Archie looks at him, through lowered eyelids, down the bed, makes his insides curl with fondness, so he lays himself down beside him, turning into the line of Archie’s body. They fit, like the old puzzle piece cliché, and a hand traces up Jug’s side to rest on his ribcage, a reassurance. In return, his own hand toys with the neckline of Archie’s shirt, because aesthetic appreciation in no way has to equate to lust, and the flashes of warm, soft skin beneath make Jughead feel privy to something impossibly secret, silently spoken in the points of contact between them.

“Is this okay?” Archie asks, and Jughead smirks at his quiet anxiousness, answering, instead of with words, with a soft kiss pressed to the angle of his jaw, and a hum of affirmation. Because this is more than okay; it might just be everything.

Because Jughead Jones has got Archie Andrews all to himself, and no matter how complicated or confusing that may seem, it’s also pretty fucking hot.

**Author's Note:**

> high school musical references will never die


End file.
